The Will of God

Assembled with commentary by Dr. Richard Carrier. Few
ever actually read the so-called Good Book, and thus are unaware of
what it really says. It is often said the best way to make anyone a
convert for atheism is simply to ask them to read the Bible. This is
just a small selection of passages that exemplify why, setting the
framework for the chapters in Part 3 of The Christian Delusion, though this chapter was excluded for lack of space. The following 24 passages are
presented with minimal comment, as translated in the New
American Standard Bible, with some italics and
bracketed clarifications added.

It is the will of God to solve his
problems with apocalyptic mass murder, including the horrible
drowning of millions of people (including men, women, children, and
babies) and billions of animals (though apparently sparing fish for
some reason):

[The LORD said to Noah], “I will send rain on the earth forty days
and forty nights. And I will blot out from the face of the land every
living thing that I have made.” … Then the flood came upon the
earth for forty days … The water prevailed more and more upon the
earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens
were covered. … All flesh that moved on the earth perished, birds
and cattle and beasts and every swarming thing that swarms upon the
earth, and all mankind; of all that was on the dry land, all in whose
nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died. Thus He blotted
out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man
to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky, and they were
blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with
those that were with him in the ark.

Genesis 7:4, 17-23

It is the will of God that you
murder anyone who picks up a stick on a Saturday:

Now while the sons of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man
gathering wood on the sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood
brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation, and they
put him in custody, because it had not been declared what should be
done to him. Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man shall surely be
put to death. All the congregation shall stone him with stones
outside the camp.” So all the congregation brought him outside the
camp and stoned him to death with stones, just as the LORD had
commanded Moses.

Numbers 15:32-36

It is the will of God that you
commit genocide when he wants you to:

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land where you are
entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you …
and when the LORD your God delivers them before you and you defeat
them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant
with them and show no favor to them. Furthermore, you shall not
intermarry with them. You shall not give your daughters to their
sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons.”

Deuteronomy 7:1-3

The LORD said to me, “See, I have begun to deliver Sihon and his
land over to you. Begin to occupy, that you may possess his land.”
Then Sihon with all his people came out to meet us in battle at
Jahaz. The LORD our God delivered him over to us, and we defeated him
with his sons and all his people. So we captured all his cities at
that time and utterly destroyed the men, women and children of every
city. We left no survivor.

Deuteronomy 2:31-34

Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og, king of
Bashan, with all his people came out to meet us in battle at Edrei.
But the LORD said to me, “Do not fear him, for I have delivered him
and all his people and his land into your hand, and you shall do to
him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at
Heshbon.” So the LORD our God delivered Og also, king of Bashan, with all his
people into our hand, and we smote them until no survivor was left.
We captured all his cities at that time. There was not a city which
we did not take from them: sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the
kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these were cities fortified with high
walls, gates and bars, besides a great many unwalled towns. We
utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly
destroying the men, women and children of every city.

Deuteronomy 3:1-6

Thus Joshua struck all the land, the hill country and the Negev and
the lowland and the slopes and all their kings. He left no survivor,
but he utterly destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God
of Israel, had commanded.

Joshua 10:40

There was not a city which made peace with the sons of Israel except
the Hivites living in Gibeon; they took them all in battle. For it
was [the will] of the LORD to harden their hearts, [so they would]
meet Israel in battle in order that he might utterly destroy them,
that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them,
just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

Joshua 11:19-20

Thus says the LORD of hosts, “I will punish Amalek for what he did
to Israel, how he set himself against him on the way while he was
coming up from Egypt. Now go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy
all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and
woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”

1 Samuel 15:2-3

It is the will of God
that you can buy and keep slaves:

“As for your male and female slaves whom you may have—you may
acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around
you. Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as
aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their
families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land;
they also may become your possession. You may even bequeath them to
your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as
permanent slaves.”

Leviticus 25:44-46

It is the will of God that you can
make sex slaves of prisoners of war:

“When you go out to battle against your enemies, and the LORD your
God delivers them into your hands and you take them away captive, and
see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her
and would take her as a wife for yourself, then you shall bring her
home to your house...”

Deuteronomy 21:10-12

And Moses said to them, “Have you spared all the women? Behold,
these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to
trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, so the plague was
among the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore, kill every male
among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man
intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately,
spare for yourselves.”

Numbers 31:15-18

It is the will of God that we kill
people who have sex (except when they have sex with their various wives
and sex slaves):

“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then turns against
her, and charges her with shameful deeds and publicly defames her,
and says, ‘I took this woman, but when I came near her, I did not
find her a virgin,’ then the girl’s father and her mother
shall take and bring out the evidence of the girl’s virginity
to the elders of the city at the gate. The girl’s father shall say
to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter to this man for a wife, but he
turned against her; and behold, he has charged her with shameful
deeds, saying, “I did not find your daughter a virgin.” But this
is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ And they shall
spread the garment before the elders of the city. So the elders of
that city shall take the man and chastise him, and they shall fine
him a hundred shekels of silver and
give it to the girl’s father, because he publicly defamed a
virgin of Israel. And she shall remain his wife; he cannot divorce
her all his days. But if this charge is true, that the girl was not
found a virgin, then they shall bring out the girl to the doorway of
her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to
death because she has committed an act of folly in Israel by playing
the harlot in her father’s house. Thus you shall purge the evil
from among you.”

Deuteronomy 22:13-30

“If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another
man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring
them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to
death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the
man, because he has violated his neighbor’s wife. Thus you shall
purge the evil from among you.”

Deuteronomy 22:23-30

It is the will of God that gay men
be executed (but lesbians can have all the sex they want):

“If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a
woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall
surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.”

Leviticus 20:13

It is the will of God that you must
abolish religious freedom with murder and terrorism:

“These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall carefully
observe in the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has
given you to possess as long as you live on the earth. … Be careful
to listen to all these words which I command you, so that it may be
well with you and your sons after you forever, for you will be doing
what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God. …
Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add
to nor take away from it. …
“If your brother, your mother’s son, or your son or daughter, or
the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entice
you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (whom
neither you nor your fathers have known, of the gods of the peoples
who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the
earth to the other end), you shall not yield to him or listen to him;
and your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him.
But you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him
to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. So
you shall stone him to death because he has sought to seduce you from
the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of
the house of slavery.
Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and will never again do
such a wicked thing among you. If you hear in one of your cities,
which the LORD your God is giving you to live in, anyone saying that
some worthless men have gone out from among you and have seduced the
inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’
(whom you have not known), then you shall investigate and search out
and inquire thoroughly. If it is true and the matter established that
this abomination has been done among you, you shall surely strike the
inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, utterly
destroying it and all that is in it and its cattle [!] with
the edge of the sword. Then you shall gather all its booty into the
middle of its open square and burn the city and all its booty with
fire as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God; and it shall be
a ruin forever. It shall never be rebuilt.”

Deuteronomy 12:1-13:16

It is the will of God
that free speech be suppressed with murder:

The son of [an] Israelite woman blasphemed the Name and cursed. So
they brought him to Moses. … They put him in custody so that the
command of the LORD might be made clear to them. Then the LORD spoke
to Moses, saying, “Bring the one who has cursed outside the camp,
and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head; then let all
the congregation stone him. [Then] you shall speak to the sons of
Israel, saying, ‘If anyone curses his God, then he will bear his
sin. Moreover, the one who blasphemes the name of the LORD shall
surely be put to death; all the congregation shall certainly stone
him. The alien as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name,
shall be put to death.’.”

Leviticus 24:11-16

It is the will of God that you
engage in human sacrifice when you promise him to:

Now the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah … [and] Jephthah made
a vow to the LORD and said, “If You will indeed give the sons of
Ammon into my hand, then it shall be that whatever comes out of the
doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the sons of
Ammon, it shall be the LORD’S, and I will offer it up as a burnt
offering.” So Jephthah crossed over to the sons of Ammon to fight
against them; and the LORD gave them into his hand. … [and] when
Jephthah came to his house at Mizpah, behold, his daughter was coming
out to meet him with tambourines and with dancing. Now she was his
one and only child; besides her he had no son or daughter. When he
saw her, he tore his clothes and said,
“Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are
among those who trouble me. For I have given my word to the LORD, and
I cannot take it back!”
So she said to him, “My father, you have given your word to the
LORD; do to me as you have said, since the LORD has avenged you of
your enemies, the sons of Ammon.” [Then] she said to her father,
“[Only] let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months,
that I may go to the mountains and weep because of my virginity, I
and my companions.”
Then he said, “Go.” So he sent her away for two months; and she
left with her companions, and wept on the mountains because of her
virginity. At the end of two months she returned to her father, who
did to her according to the vow which he had made. And she [had] had
no relations with a man. Thus it became a custom in Israel, that the
daughters of Israel went yearly to commemorate the daughter of
Jephthah the Gileadite four days in the year.

Judges 11:29-40

It is the will of God to murder tens
of thousands of innocent people just because one guy did what God
actually inspired him to do (which even that one guy had enough sense
to know was inexplicably unjust):

Now again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and it incited
David against them to say, “Go, number Israel and Judah.” … Now
David’s heart troubled him after he had numbered the people. So
David said to the LORD, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done.
But now, O LORD, please take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I
have acted very foolishly.”
When David arose in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the
prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, “Go and speak to David, ‘Thus
the LORD says, “I am offering you three things; choose for yourself
one of them, which I will do to you.”’”
So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall seven
years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three
months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be
three days’ pestilence in your land?” …
Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us now fall
into the hand of the LORD for His mercies are great, but do not let
me fall into the hand of man.”
So the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the
appointed time, and seventy thousand men of the people from Dan to
Beersheba died. [But] when the angel stretched out his hand toward
Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity and said
to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough! Now relax
your hand!” …
Then David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who was striking
down the people, and said, “Behold, it is I who have sinned, and it
is I who have done wrong; but these sheep, what have they done?”

2 Samuel 24:1-17

It
is the will of God to kill pacifists:

Now a certain man of the sons of the prophets said to another by the
word of the LORD, “Please strike me.” But the man refused to
strike him. Then he said to him, “Because you have not listened to
the voice of the LORD, behold, as soon as you have departed from me,
a lion will kill you.” And as soon as he had departed from him a
lion found him and killed him.

1 Kings 20:35-36

It is the will of God to hideously
maul dozens of children merely for being silly:

Then [the LORD’s Prophet Elisha] went up from there to Bethel. And
as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and
mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you
baldhead!” When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them
in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods
and tore up forty-two lads of their number.

2 Kings 2:23-24

It is the will of God that he will
bless people who smash babies against rocks:

“O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one,
How blessed will be the one who repays you
With the recompense with which you have repaid us.
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little
ones
Against the rock.”

Psalms
137:8-9

It is the will of God to make deals
with the Devil and allow hideous evils to befall the innocent just to
win a bet:

The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job? For
there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man,
fearing God and turning away from evil.”
Then Satan answered the LORD, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have
You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on
every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his
possessions have increased in the land. But put forth Your hand now
and touch all that he has. He will surely curse You to Your face.”
Then the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your
power, only do not put forth your hand on him.” So Satan departed
from the presence of the LORD.
Now on the day when his sons and his daughters were eating and
drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, a messenger came to
Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside
them, and the Sabeans attacked and took them. They also slew the
servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell
you.”
While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire
of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and
consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The
Chaldeans formed three bands and made a raid on the camels and took
them and slew the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone
have escaped to tell you.”
While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “Your
sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest
brother’s house, and behold, a great wind came from across the
wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on
the young people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell
you.”
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to
the ground and worshiped. …
[Then] the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant
Job? … He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me
against him to ruin him without cause.”
Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a
man has he will give for his life. However, put forth Your hand now,
and touch his bone and his flesh. He will curse You to Your face.”
So the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your power, only
spare his life.”
Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and smote Job with
sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he
took a potsherd to scrape himself while he was sitting among the
ashes.
Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity?
Curse God and die!”
But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks.
Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?”

Job 1:8-2:10

It is the will of God to be jealous,
angry, and vengeful and to cruelly bring natural disasters upon the
world:

A jealous and avenging God is the LORD. The LORD is avenging and
wrathful. The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He
reserves wrath for His enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great
in power, and the LORD will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.
In whirlwind and storm is His way, and clouds are the dust beneath
His feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry. He dries up all the
rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither. The blossoms of Lebanon wither.
Mountains quake because of Him, and the hills dissolve. Indeed the
earth is upheaved by His presence, the world and all the inhabitants
in it. Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the
burning of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the
rocks are broken up by Him. The LORD is good.

Nahum 1:2-8

It is the will of God that when he
commands you to bake your meals with human shit and you complain,
he’ll have mercy on you and only insist you roast it with bullshit instead:

[The LORD said to me, His prophet Ezekiel], “You shall eat [your
food] as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human
dung.” Then the LORD said, “Thus will the sons of Israel eat
their bread unclean among the nations where I will banish them.”
But I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I have never been defiled.
For from my youth until now I have never eaten what died of itself or
was torn by beasts, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth!”
[So] He said to me, “[Then] I will give you cow’s dung in place
of human dung over which you will prepare your bread.”